Chapter 8 Dakota
DAKOTA
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
I should be safely in my apartment, waiting for Trevor’s mom to call and let me know it’s time to pick Logan up, but that won’t be for at least a couple hours, and I’m sick of being stuck in my own head.
My thoughts just keep playing through the past twenty-four hours.
Logan on the streets alone. Lash, Jackal and Stiff. The visit from the police.
Georgia.
Why am I in my car driving to the other side of town, just so I can do what? Stand around not drinking with some guys I just met?
But I’m already mostly there, so I find the bar where Stiff told me to meet them, and pull into the seediest strip mall I’ve ever seen.
The parking lot is cracked, the windows are blacked out, and there’s a neon sign for The Burnout.
Motorcycles line the outside, so I have to park a little ways away from the door, and there are several groups of scary looking men idling around, talking, smoking and drinking.
Yesterday, when I was in their compound or whatever they call it, I only saw guys, but here there are quite a few women around, most dressed like it’s July and not November.
One catches my eye. A woman with long brown hair is hanging off the arm of a tall man in cowboy boots wearing an Outlaw Son’s jacket.
She has one too, but it says Property Of on the top, and then Ghost, Tex and Riot on the bottom.
He has his arm around her waist, but she’s talking to a second biker with dark hair and a long black beard.
He laughs at something she says and leans in, kissing her, and not in a casual friend way.
I hold my breath, waiting for the guy in the cowboy boots to react, but nobody seems to mind.
Huh.
I let out a little scream when someone knocks at my window, but it’s only Lash, with Stiff behind him. A little embarrassed, I wave and get out of the car. “Hey, I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have come.”
Lash’s smile is pure mischief. “But you’re here now, so you have to at least come in for a drink.”
“I’m going to have to drive home to pick up Logan in an hour or so.”
Stiff puts a hand on my back. He tears me away from the car and towards the door. “Not all drinks are booze.”
“I might not be the best company…” Even I can tell I’m not fighting very hard.
Lash pushes my hair off my shoulder and leans in. “Impossible. You look so fucking pretty tonight.”
I get a few looks when we walk in, but I don’t stick out like a sore thumb the way I did when I was still in my uniform.
I have my hair mostly down around my shoulders, with just the sides clipped up, and I’m not wearing a full face of makeup, but it’s definitely more than I’d wear for work and with a nice red lipstick, it always seems a little more dramatic than it really is.
I wasn’t sure what I should wear to a biker bar, but I went with boot cut jeans that hug my butt, and a black fuzzy sweater.
“Hector, my man!” Lash yells on the way to the bar. “Find something virginal for the lady! It’s her first time!”
Several heads swivel my way.
“Shut up! I’m not! I—” I snap my mouth shut when even more people turn to see what the fuss is about.
Jackal is at the bar waiting, struggling not to laugh, and Stiff isn’t even trying.
Lash clasps a hand to his chest. “I meant coming here, of course.”
“Of course.” I hop up onto the stool next to Jackal.
Stiff and Lash squeeze in around us. The Burnout is a dive bar in the best sort of way.
Hard rock blares from the speakers, bikers are packed into every square foot, and nobody cares if you’re twenty-one or sixty-three.
When we walked into the hospital, people stared at Jackal and his friends, but here, I’m the one that stands out.
The bartender, a burly bald man with a gold hoop in his ear, makes his way over. He looks down at me. “I got water, soda or non-alcoholic beer. Pick your poison.”
“The beer, please.”
He slaps down a glass and pulls a bottle out of a fridge under the bar, popping the cap and pouring. “There you go, honey.”
“Seriously? You got non-alcoholic beer?” Stiff asks, shocked. “When did that happen?”
“Always had it, asshole. You’ve just never asked.”
I take a sip. It’s nothing to write home about, but for an hour I can at least pretend my life is normal. Kind of. “Thanks.”
Jackal smiles. He stands up and holds out his hand, palm up.
His fingers are rough, and faded tattoos stand out against his skin.
He’s such a contrast. Skin thick with ink from his neck to his fingers and probably everywhere else.
Piercings stacked heavily in his ears, but he feels like a rock in a storm.
The kind of person you can rely on to hold everything together when the world is falling apart.
I put my hand in his and he tugs me off the stool and onto a free spot of floor.
There’s no room for dancing, not really, but he puts his arm around my back and it’s easy to fall into a gentle sway with my thumbs loosely hooked into his belt loops.
My pulse speeds up a little, but he’s so relaxed about it that it’s easy to just go with the flow.
I don’t know if this was the bar Georgia used to hang out in, but it makes me feel a little closer to her to think that maybe she danced with her own biker back in the day. I hope she did.
“What’s your next step?” he asks.
“I wait.”
“Fucking hate that part.”
We drift a little closer. “Yeah… The police came by today.”
His sway pauses for a moment. “What did they want to know?”
“He was mostly asking about Georgia. Kept pushing to make me say things that would make her look bad.” I wrinkle my nose, remembering. “A jerk, basically. Oh! He did ask about you guys and why you were with me at the hospital.”
“What did you say?” Jackal asks. There’s tension in the question.
It suddenly occurs to me that if I was in his shoes, I probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the police nosing around in my business. The Outlaw Sons have been nothing but good to me, but I’m not dumb. It hasn’t made me forget their reputation. I doubt they are on great terms with the local police.
“Nothing. I told him I wouldn’t answer. I’m sorry if that makes him think I was hiding something.
I probably should’ve just said that you weren’t involved at all and you were just being nice, but I was so freaking angry at how he talked about my sister, and then he implied that if I didn’t cooperate, I might be held accountable for her accident.
I had to get him out of my place before I gave him a reason to arrest me. ”
“What the fuck? Why would you be responsible?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it right now.” I lean in, and he pulls me the rest of the way until my cheek is resting against his chest. A broad hand strokes slowly up and down my back. Our swaying doesn’t even really fit with the music, but neither of us seem to mind.
“You look real nice tonight,” Jackal says quietly. “The bun was cute, but this is better.” His fingers tangle in the ends of my hair, tugging gently.
“Really? Are you sure I’m not overdressed?” I nod my head in the direction of a girl who’s wearing shorts so short I can see the bottom of her butt cheeks pop out when she moves. “It’s November. She must be freezing.”
“She’s countin’ on someone else keeping her warm.” He chuckles. “Not that I would complain about seeing more skin, but I think you’re just fine. Those jeans are doing God’s work.”
I’m glad my face is at least partly hidden, because I don’t want him to see my flustered smile, or the heat I know is rising on my cheeks.
His hands skirt lower, resting just at my hips with his fingers spread so I can feel them just touching my ass.
We stay like that until the end of the song, before heading back to the bar.
Stiff and Lash watch as we weave through the crowd.
Stiff stands up and offers his stool, sliding in right behind me close enough to act as a human backrest. I keep waiting for them to show those subtle signs of staking a claim that happens when things get a little flirty, but either I’m reading too much into biker body language, or they genuinely don’t mind.
Either way, I’ve got too many real things to worry about in my life right now to worry about dating.
If they weren’t already aware of my situation, there’s no way I’d be here, but this is nice.
I don’t have to put on a fake smile. I sip my fake beer and lean back into Stiff as Lash breaks into a story about how the guy who lives next to him keeps waking everyone up with his screaming because he’s trying to start cold water swimming by taking ice cold showers.
“But is it working?” I ask, laughing.
He shrugs. “Only if his strategy is to piss us off until we tie him up and drop him off the pier ourselves.”